Once upon a time, a young man planned a beautiful date for his girlfriend. He laid out a white blanket, with flower petals, and champagne, and little bullshit sandwiches, and cheese, and stuff. It was a romantic picnic in a park, overlooking some city’s skyline. It was a thoughtful, wonderful gesture, a lovely date. The girlfriend in question took a picture of the picnic spread. She posted the picture online with a short message expressing her gratitude. She felt lucky to have such a boyfriend.
Another young woman, a complete stranger to the girlfriend in question, took a screenshot of the post. She re-posted the image with her own original comment above it. The comment was: “Are there still guys that do this type of thing???” The funny thing, of course, is that she asked this on a picture of a guy doing the exact thing she’s asking about. The evidence is right there.
Now, because this post (the re-post, with the question) was on a social media platform, there were a number of comments attached to it. Many of the comments were made by young men, saying things like “women don’t appreciate this type of thing any more.” Again, they’re claiming that on a post of a woman appreciating the very thing they’re complaining about! The evidence is right there.
Why do we do this? The short answer is that we’re frustrated and we’re trying to vent. It happens. There is a tendency for us to extrapolate in this exact type of situation. The human brain notices patterns. It likes patterns. It catalogues data, based on experience, and uses that data to understand the world. It recognizes cause and effect. When I did X, Y happened. When I did X 10 times, Y happened 9 times. So X leads to Y. There is a tendency to apply this line of thinking to our personal relationships as well. We extrapolate.
We can’t help it, really, but it’s best to minimize the effects of this extrapolation. Or, to be more precise, it’s best to minimize the negative effects of this extrapolation. A lot of the time it’s bad, but sometimes it’s good. For example, if you mock other people’s appearances, and they dislike you for it, it’s probably good to extrapolate that people generally don’t like to be mocked for their physical appearance, so stop doing it.
In the romantic relationship sense, we do a great deal of extrapolation that is harmful. We allow other peoples’ rejections of us dictate our future behavior, mindset, and actions. Let’s re-examine the initial example. Some of the men who commented on the re-post, saying that women don’t appreciate those gestures any more, many of them may have experienced that. They really liked a woman, and wanted to show that, so they tried to do a grand, beautiful, romantic thing for her. And it failed. They were rejected, or the woman didn’t like it, or they eventually broke up and she went with someone who doesn’t do that sort of thing. It just doesn’t work out.
So the man extrapolates that, well, women just don’t like that. So he stops doing it. But the next woman might really like that type of thing! So the man is changing his behavior and who he is based on very incomplete data. The truth is that there are billions of people, and they’re all different, and they all want different things in a romantic relationship [some don’t want one at all]. The extrapolation doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but we [including me] still do it.
You could be a really funny person. That’s a core part of who you are. You make people laugh, including the people that you have romantic feelings for. So you’re making people laugh all the time, but you keep getting rejected or ghosted or broken up with or whatever. It’s tempting to think, “Look, making people laugh is fun, but it doesn’t work in attracting a partner, so I’m gonna stop trying.” And that’s really fuckin tragic, when someone gives up a significant part of themselves because it didn’t appeal to someone that they really cared about. It happens with a lot of things. “I wrote a song for someone, but it didn’t move them in the way that I had hoped, so I’m gonna quit writing songs.”
That dejected feeling is awful, but that’s part of vulnerability. That’s part of putting yourself out there. You’re subject to some disappointments. Some really bad disappointments.
And the harsher truth is this: giving your all for someone you love is not inherently more valuable to them than another person giving them what they want. If you really love someone, you might give all your time, energy, effort, and all the love you have to that person. That’s great, but someone else can come along and just provide the person you love with what they want. And that’s it, they choose someone else over you. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. You just gotta keep going. Don’t extrapolate too much, and keep being the best you can be.
Lefty Forrester 